Reed, Thornton help Aggies edge SUU
Utah State head coach Stew Morrill refused to feel bad about winning Saturday night.
Despite losing senior forward and vocal leader Brady Jardine just four minutes into the game, USU pulled out a 65-62 win over Southern Utah in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.
“We’re not going to feel bad about a win,” USU head coach Stew Morrill said. “You look at that game and obviously we’re a long ways from being a good basketball team, and that’s what I’ve been saying for a while. We’ve got a lot of new people and a lot of new guys trying to find their way.”
Freshman Steven Thornton and junior transfer Kyisean Reed led the Aggies with 13 points and five rebounds apiece.
USU looked to be on the brink of a blowout in the first six minutes of the game, as Preston Medlin made a layup to give the Aggies their biggest lead of the first half at 13-6, but SUU responded to the deficit with a 9-2 run.
“Everybody was lazy at first,” Thornton said. “We weren’t really in it.”
Sophomore Wade Collie, who finished with 10 points — all of which came in the first half — hit a 3-pointer after Medlin’s layup to propel the run and hit another 3-pointer a little more than one minute later as part of the run.
USU struggled with foul trouble through much of the game and SUU capitalized in the first half. Jackson Stevenette, who finished with a game-high 19 points to go with seven rebounds and three assists, hit a pair of free throws, with three minutes remaining in the first half, to give SUU a 22-20 lead.
“We have to stay focused the whole game,” Thornton said. “It seems like we slack off during certain periods. We just need to stay focused and play hard the whole game.”
SUU held the lead going into halftime and held the lead for the first nine minutes of the second half. The T-Birds extended their lead to the largest of the night at 37-30, after senior forward Matt Massey hit a pair of free throws five minutes into the half.
“When you are out there playing and Brady Jardine goes down, and Brockeith Pane is having a really tough night, and Morgan Grim is in foul trouble, we are out there with a lot of guys that haven’t played a lot of basketball at Utah State,” Morrill said.
Freshman center Jordan Stone checked into the game about five minutes into the half and provided a spark for USU. Stone finished the night with five points and five rebounds — four of which were offensive rebounds — in seven minutes.
“They found a way and they made some plays,” Morrill said. “I thought that Jordan Stone gave us an emotional lift that we desperately needed. We were kind of shellshocked.
Pane gave the Aggies a 42-41 lead with a pull-up jumper, midway through the second half, but Massey responded with a jumper on the other end to regain the lead.
Thornton hit a jumper on the ensuing possession to give USU the lead for good.
SUU went through a scoring drought toward the end of the second half and remained stationary at 45 points for a four-minute span.
Reed gave USU its biggest lead of the night with a layup at 57-48, with just under four minutes remaining in the contest, but SUU would not go quietly.
“We made some spectacular plays, and we made some really poor plays,” Morrill said. “We hustled on some rebounds and got some dunks, we flew around a little bit. We got some offensive rebounds, and we go down three times in a row and didn’t guard them. We stopped the clock and things like that.”
The T-Birds cut the lead within one possession several times in the final minute of the game, and USU missed several free throws to give SUU an opportunity to win, but Collie’s last-second 3-point attempt missed everything.
“We aren’t very good with a lead right now,” Morrill said. “Two games — the BYU game and this game — we found a way to let them get back into the game. We will take it, and we will try to get better tomorrow at practice.”
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu